On the surface, a movie about an alien coming to Earth, hiding among us and harvesting human bodies seems familiar and perhaps even predictable. But not when it’s in the hands of Jonathan Glazer. To truly capture the experience of a creature from another realm, operating openly among humans, he largely shot many sequences in the Scarlett Johansson-starring film with non-professional actors, sometimes guerrilla style, with multiple cameras hidden, but on the move. “I think you commit to this character as an alien in human form, and there are so many tropes that you are trying to avoid. You’re looking for fresh ground somewhere, and really as you try to analyze this carefully, how do you do that? It became very clear to me that it was about a conceit, it was about filming it and making the form and kind of content be the same thing,” the director told us at TIFF. “Like trying to create a Trojan horse—which is what she is as a character in the story—and filming it and photographing it in exactly the same way, would serve that narrative. So they become inextricably linked.”
And the result is a blazingly brilliant piece of filmmaking, one that utilizes almost zero dialogue, but presents the experience of Scarlett Johansson’s alien almost like a documentary as she does her work, until a crisis of conscience changes her life forever. It’s one of the best movies we saw at Venice and TIFF, and it’s simply one of the most unique, original and mindblowing movies you’ll see in a theater all year. A24 will release “Under The Skin” this spring on April 4th, but for now here’s a batch of new images from movie.
Bonus round: Scarlett Johansson is also the star of one of the most talked about Super Bowl spots. Now repping for SodaStream—a company that has generated controversy for a host of reasons besides football marketing—her appearance in their game day ad has been banned not because it’s too sexy or salacious, but rather because it digs at other advertisers, Coke and Pepsi. The horror! Check it out below (via Deadline).
